Harvard University announced over the summer that it had hired drag performer Kareem Khubchandani, a visiting professor from Tufts, to teach a spring course on RuPaul’s Drag Race in the Studies of Gender and Sexuality program, supported by the Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus.
Khubchandani is better known by the stage name “LaWhore Vagistan,” and has long integrated the persona into teaching, often lecturing in character and even producing a music video.
In a 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press interview with his own drag persona, Khubchandani explained the origin of the provocative stage name:
“My name is LaWhore Vagistan, my preferred pronouns are ‘she’ or ‘aunty.’ I chose ‘LaWhore’ because my family traces its origins to Pakistan: Lahore is an important city in Pakistan, and well, I’m a bit of a w*ore. And Vagistan because I see the subcontinent as one, big, beautiful Vag … istan.”
According to Harvard, Khubchandani will teach two courses: Queer Ethnography in the fall and RuPaulitics: Drag, Race, and Desire in the spring, the latter centered on RuPaul’s Drag Race television show. A Tufts associate professor of theater, dance, and performance studies, Khubchandani has also authored several books: “Decolonizer Drag,” “Ishstyle: Accenting Gay Indian Nightlife” and “Lessons in Drag: A Queer Manual for Academics, Artists, and Aunties.”
🇺🇸 HARVARD HIRES DRAG QUEEN ‘LAWHORE VAGISTAN’ AS PROFESSOR
Harvard just hired a professor who sometimes teaches in full drag, goes by “LaWhore Vagistan,” and refers to herself as “aunty.”
Yes, that’s now part of the Ivy League curriculum.
Students will learn about queer… https://t.co/8Teduld6MN pic.twitter.com/K8uH4H7Mqc
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 2, 2025
Just remember that not only is mental illness severely underdiagnosed, but our collegiate system is a joke and takes people like “Professor Vagistan” seriously.
Trump needs to defund all the universities that promote this garbage! https://t.co/VFbE26XQ8w
— Dennis Michael Lynch (@TrustDML) October 2, 2025
